It’s been a crazy summer. I always tend to cram as much action in my summer holiday as possible and as a result of that I found myself dodging terrorist attacks in London, sipping cocktails on the penthouse terrace of a MTV Cribs-style apartment in southern Spain, working 12 hours a day in a beach restaurant and laying on a beach in Brazil where hot girls in thongs are the rule instead of the exception. Besides all that, Swap (Geoffrey Siron) won his first PT, Antonino finally won something and Masashi surprisingly didn’t win his Nationals. Dutch Nationals however, were an entirely different story…
It all started some months ago, when we found out that Japanese Nationals would be the week before ours. We also found out that most top Dutch pro’s would go on a GP-trip to the U.S. and wouldn’t return the Tuesday before our Nats. This means it actually all started the Tuesday before Nats. As you can read in Wessel’s report he was set on the Red deck pretty early on. I played some games with it with Jeroen on Tuesday night and it indeed looked good. It had good or 50-50 matchups against everything that didn’t play Arc-Slogger and was especially keen on defeating decks with Urza pieces. Jeroen was set on playing, Rats as it was the only deck that resembled the Rock (some people…), but couldn’t put up a decent fight.
Two days later we collected most pros in a local game store in Tilburg and tested some more. Rogier Maaten, probably the best Dutch player right now (and formidable squash opponent with a preference for girls whose name ends with …aria Sharapova), showed me a MUC Jushi list that the Dutchies had worked on in the U.S.. Apparently Kenji had showed him his list which turned out to be almost exactly the same. Gone were the bad counters that people easily play around (Condescend) and there was some more board control in 2 Oblivion Stones. After getting crushed by Jeroen and his new Rat sideboard, I realized that the Red deck was still a Red deck and the Blue deck had the same amount of good matchups, so I quickly changed and got some games in with MUC.
At some point we went for food and randomly ran into Kamiel, who wanted to get some games in. Back at the store Bas Postema, a friend who is very good at Magic but quit about a year ago (the two tournaments he played in since than are GP: Eindhoven where he made Top 8 and this Nationals, where he made the team), told Kamiel that he didn’t feel prepared enough since he’s only done four drafts in the format. To this Kamiel responded: “That many?” (Kamiel never drafts more than twice for any PT. Try to picture this with the classic Cornelissen shrug.) Anyway, we gamed some more until everyone was fed up of Bas trying to convince Frank that his Yavimaya Coast really was a Blinkmoth Nexus, even though it was a Stalking Stones last game. I asked them for the game score in the MUC-Tooth matchup to which they replied that they’d both screwed up at different points that the actual score could be anything in anyone’s favor.
This was our list:
4 Jushi Apprentice
4 Spire Golem
4 Annul
4 Mana Leak
3 Boomerang
4 Hinder
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Vedalken Shackles
2 Oblivion Stone
2 Rewind
4 Stalking Stones
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
20 Island
Sideboard:
2 Culling Scales
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Pithing Needle
2 Rewind
2 Acquire
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
2 Meloku, the Clouded Mirror
3 Kaijin of the Vanishing Touch
Maxing out on Annuls is key in this format. Every deck has at least 8 targets and it’s your only defense against first turn Aether Vial. The one mana cost is also key on later turns when you want to tap low to cast a creature and you won’t have to worry about any equipment that could wreck your day. The sideboard seems and is a bit random but hey, what can you expect with only two days of testing? I swapped the fourth Kaijin for the extra Miren in the side since it’s insane in the mirror, giving you an immediate huge advantage if you draw it with an active Shackles.
So Friday came and after getting up at a ridiculous hour to compensate for any traffic jams we might get ourselves into, we arrived in Utrecht where everyone was getting their last cards. Frank came up with the brilliant Twincast plan that kept us busy for the next hour or so. Basically, Frank, Rogier and me, who were all playing the same MUC list, went up to people with Tooth decks and specifically asked them for copies of Twincast to complete our sideboards. Hopefully they would then play around them if they go paired with one of us. In the end no one did off course, but at least we ended up with about 15 Twincasts. We also got to scout everywhere and compiled a list of decks people played. Frank had actually been working on this list for days before the tournament. You know how some people just always play the same deck or type of deck? I think we could count up to about 20 names we knew in advance. Just like Jeroen will always play Rock, Zvi had his affair with Turboland and Dave Price would always play Sligh. In the end, we had almost everyone before the tournament even started and finished it in round one. The whole thing was pretty useless as well since everyone knows each other in the Netherlands, we’re just that small, so everyone was in on the list. There was only one guy that started yelling at Frank at some point after he tricked him in telling us his deck but Frank took it like a man, then proceeded to settle the matter outside.
I’ve never done well at any Nationals and this year proved to be no different. While most players were getting their game on in the first three rounds and were “growing in the tournament”, “gaining confidence in their deck” or even figuring out their deck while winning some rounds in Standard, I proceeded to quickly 0-3. Couldn’t beat the mono Green deck and wasn’t even close with the White Weenie guy that insisted on giving me four extra turns. I had a shot at the 0-2 table against Ogre/Demons, but even after he threw away some cards for no reason he still managed to draw six spells in a row. Nice deck, Kenji.
At least the next format was draft, a little bit more skill intensive, which favored me now that I was “living the dream”. I have to tell you something about my preferences there. You see, before PT: London I tried to stay away from Green cards as much as possible, but in one of the money drafts I managed to draft the Petalmane deck… and instantly fell in love. The Petalmane deck is exactly what you expect of it, it has as many Petalmanes as possible. For them to work optimally, you want as many Spirit/Arcane cards as possible with a preference for those that have soulshift. As long as you have two or three Petalmanes, you just start splashing stuff. The London deck was B/G, 3 Petalmanes, splashing Blessed Breath, Shimmering Glasskite and Jiwari, but you can do much better. The best I had was in an online draft where I had double Petalmane, double Elder Pine, only Spirit and Arcane spells and usually killed my opponents in one turn with recurring Spiraling Embers. You should try it once, as the deck does really well. I’ve only lost a couple of games with it while winning at least twenty.
Back to the draft. It might not surprise you that my first deck was a Petalmane special, this time splashing for such hits as Brutal Deceiver and Ribbons of the Reikai. The deck easily 3-0’d, but that might have something to do with the quality at the 0-3 tables. My next deck was pure insanity mixed into a clear U/W package. All the good and playable rares in the draft were in my colors and no one seemed to draft those, so I ended up 3-0 without ever dropping a game. The most fun was the game where I went turn 2 Jushi Apprentice, turn 5 Hikari, turn 6 Tomorrow, Azami’s Familiar, and turn 7 Konda. To this rare flow my opponent immediately scooped.
Still keeping the dream alive, we had to go back to Constructed where my 0-3 deck was waiting for me. I got paired against Johan Assen, also playing MUC. Fortunately I had been testing the mirror with Julien all weekend, since it’s one of the most confusing matchups there is. It’s all about Jushis, unless someone has Shackles-advantage, unless someone has an Oblivion Stone. If both players have active Jushis, the board can easily clog up and Shackle interactions get unclear. For this reason Frank constructed some paper arrows to point out what Shackle was Shackling what.
Johan, however, wasn’t as prepared, which combined with his abundance of lands gave me another win. So now I was 1-3 in Constructed, beating only the mirror match.
Next round I was paired up against up and coming player Mathijs van Wageningen playing Rats. Mathijs Had a brain fart when Blackmailing me in the first game, choosing Rewind over Mana Leak and the running his all important Viridian Shaman right into that Mana Leak in the very same turn! Second game was a long, drawn-out affair to seemed to be going Mathijs’ way up until the point where he laid a land and said go with five cards in hand. Even though I only had one card, my Shackles stuck and he didn’t have any answers. Jushi eventually brought it home.
So now I was playing for Top 8, paired against Bas. Obviously I didn’t win that one, otherwise the title of this article would have said “Top 8” or “Winner! Yay!” Bas just knew what he was doing with his Tooth deck and I Acquired Sundering Titan instead of Mindslaver turn 5, fearing artifact removal too much. In the end, it’s better this way as Bas now gets to go to Yokohama while I was already qualified and the more friends there, the merrier!